The Counterweight of Winter
by auntarctica
Summary: A triptych of two men, and two centuries.


BROOKLYN, 1941

He'd tried once more, on a Thursday. Another enlistment office, a new and enterprising alias. They'd looked at him dubiously, as usual, but obliged and put him through the paces. By now, they were as familiar as a schoolyard rhyme to Steve. He'd studied a lot for this test, each time he failed it, and this time around he tried even harder, digging deep, teeth clenched and mining his soul—desperate for any ounce of grit he might have missed, lest it be just enough to carry him over the line into "acceptable".

The inevitable rejection came swiftly on a platter, saltless and unseasoned by minced words or kind lies—bland and denoted only by the code IV-F. He was unfit, again, as if he didn't know it. Unsuitable for combat, unsuitable to serve. Unsuitable to even defend the world against the rabid scourge that breached her borders and lapped at her shores.

When the tap on his window came, he was lying on his back in the low light of a single lamp, brooding; staring up at the hairline cracks in the plaster of the ceiling, lost in his own self-recriminations.

Steve sat up slightly and glanced at the bedside clock. He already knew it was late; the radio was playing a newsreel from the front, which meant the all-night morale-boosting big band broadcast was at its first intermission. That meant it was after midnight, and that's why James Buchanan Barnes had come up the fire escape to Steve's room, instead of going to the front door, like he had since they were kids. Since Steve's mother had died, there was no real reason for such respectful subterfuge. Still, the habit had persisted, out of a certain canny and unspoken reverence on Bucky's part, for which Steve was grateful. It would have been strange, somehow, if he hadn't.

Steve didn't get up. He knew the drill, and Bucky knew how to prize up the lower sash, which he did, one-armed, with savoir faire. He slid into the room, still in his khakis, cap in his hand, looking trim and pressed and dapper despite all the earmarks of an obvious evening out, painting the town. His seal-brown hair was side-parted and combed in that perfectly sleek and jaunty way, the one that telegraphed his personality without him having to say a word. And when he actually said a word, well, it was all over.

"Already in your pajamas? On a Friday night?" Bucky shook his head. "This is why you should have come out with me."

"Guess I'm still smarting over yesterday." Steve forced a wan smile. "I'll get over it. I always do." This time felt different, though he didn't say that. It felt like he'd truly tried every gambit he might contrive, exhausted all his options, and that this was the end of the line.

"Yesterday," said Bucky, the smile falling away from his face. "Yeah." He sat on the edge of the bed, hands between his knees and toying with the cap. "About that."

"There's nothing to say." Steve sighed, leaning back against the brass headboard. "They don't want me. I'm a ninety-pound weakling, and nobody wants the Jerries kicking sand in America's eyes."

"Look, I've been thinking. Thinking about you. A lot, actually. It's why I came here." Bucky paused, measuring his words. "It bugged me, you not being there. It's no good without you, Stevie. It's just not."

Steve felt himself smile. "I didn't mean to spoil your night, Buck."

"Don't get me wrong," said Barnes, with a grin. "I still had fun."

"I know you did." Steve was still smiling. He couldn't help himself. It was impossible to look at Bucky very long without succumbing. "You always do."

Bucky's grin faded, slowly. "Listen, I know you're down. And sure, maybe you needed to be alone for a while. But then I got to thinking, maybe it's not so great for a fellow to wallow in his misery." He spread his hands. "So here I am."

"How much have you had to drink?"

"No more than usual," said Bucky. "And less than most nights."

"And the girls?"

"I brought one for you. But you didn't show." Bucky shrugged. "So I showed them a good time. I have two arms, after all. She was pretty, though. You'd have liked her."

"She wouldn't have liked me." Steve said it in a matter-of-fact way, devoid of self-pity. "I can't blame her. What girl in her right mind would? Who wants a national washout? How is a guy who can't even get lucky with compulsive service ever going to get lucky with a real-live girl?"

"Stop that." A rare sharp note entered James' tone. He stared down at the cap in his hands. "Don't you talk about my best friend that way."

"I know it makes you sore. I don't mean to get all down in the mouth. It's just hard sometimes, Buck. And here you are, putting yourself out there for me, setting me up with girls all the time. I just wish I could close the deal for once, and not let you down."

"You've never let me down, Stevie."

"I did tonight. You're right. I shouldn't have moped around here, licking the windows. I should have gone out, and met your friend."

Bucky sighed and tossed his cap aside. "Yeah, well, forget about her. There's nothing she would have done for you that I can't."

Steve tilted his head, considering it. "Well, maybe a couple things."

"Like what?" said Bucky, turning his head to look at him.

Steve felt himself laugh again, haltingly. "I mean...Jesus, Buck, you know what I mean."

"Oh, right," said Bucky. "Love and other indoor sports."

"It wouldn't even have to be love," said Steve, sighing, putting an arm above his head.

"Better if it is, though. Right?" Bucky stared at the ceiling.

"I wouldn't know," Steve said, wryly. "You tell me."

Bucky snorted softly, and there was a silence. It was companionable. After a few beats, Barnes leaned back against the headboard beside him, sighing, lacing his hands behind his head. The radio crooned on low from the bedside table. Newsreels had given way to the all-night orchestra once more.

Eventually, Bucky turned his head toward Steve, who glanced at him in mild surprise, with a smile. "What?"

"Just thinking. This is a nice moment, isn't it," said Barnes. "Cozy."

"Cozy," Steve repeated, with a laugh.

"Yeah. Cozy."

"Yeah," said Steve. "I guess so."

Bucky reached out to tousle Steve's hair, prompting a grin, and then his hand strayed, slowly, to the hairs at his nape, where it lingered for a moment, gently stroking them.

It evinced an immediate sensation, a xylophonic ripple down his spine, electric enough to short-circuit his mind. "What's all this?" He tried to sound casual, but his throat was suddenly and strangely dry; the words scarcely edged past the corridor.

"Nothing," murmured Bucky. "Nothing much."

"It feels like something."

"Since you didn't make it tonight, I just figured I'd fill in what you missed." He shrugged obscurely. "You know, like telling you the plot of the movie."

Steve closed his eyes, swallowing. "Do you usually act out the movie?"

"Sometimes."

Even in his rattled state, Steve had to admit it was actually true. Bucky could get pretty animated when he aped Cagney, like he had after seeing _Each Dawn I Die._

He felt Bucky's hand cup the back of his neck, as he looked Steve in the eyes. His gaze was warm and steady, and Steve's heart went still.

 _Jesus Christ_. Steve felt himself getting lightheaded. Was he swooning? Swooning over Barnes? _You wouldn't be the first, kid._

He was faintly aware as a slight weight eased onto his lap, and began a gentle, gradual motion, a rhythmic pressure that resulted in a startling bloom of indecent feeling. He realized Bucky was rubbing his cock through the threadbare flannel, and his cock was rising to the occasion, like a dutiful soldier.

"Bucky, what the hell—"

"Pipe down, Professor. You'll wake the neighbors."

"Buck, you can't—" Steve sat up on the hobnail bedspread, slowly, feeling a disconcerting stirring of arousal; erotic urges pulling when and where they shouldn't. His pulse had surged at the touch, and now his heart beat a crazy rhythm, battering itself in his ribcage like it wanted to escape, making him wonder if it might kill him after all. "What are you doing?"

"Just being friendly," said Bucky. "Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."

"You've done this before?" Steve knew he sounded incredulous.

"What do you care?" Bucky eyed him, with the look that launched a thousand blouse buttons and sent all the khaki-wacky dolls into a tailspin. Steve had seen it time and time again, at every USO dance, every saunter down the sidewalk—the way they swooned over his every move. "Sure, I've done plenty of things. A lot of that, and a little of this. Relax, I'm not gonna hurt you."

"That's not what I'm afraid of." Maybe Steve had always swooned a little too; it didn't kill him to admit it. He was closest to Bucky, after all, and that was a powerful genetic magic he had. He had always written it off, a little, because wasn't that the way the whole wide world responded to James Buchanan Barnes? With open arms?

Steve's were still at his sides, and made no moves toward guarding his body.

James was gazing at him with somber blue eyes. "You never need to be afraid of anything around me. We're solid, all right? Thick as thieves. For keeps. You know that."

"I know," said Steve, and he did. There was always Bucky, had always been Bucky; dauntless, hale, dashing and unfailing. Everything Steve wasn't, except for that one trait they shared—the one Steve used to make up for all the others.

Bucky shrugged winsomely. "So let me touch it," he said, like it was the easiest thing.

"I'm not stopping you," Steve said. His voice sounded unfamiliar to his own ears, raw and low.

"Good enough for me."

"I'm not," Steve heard himself whisper.

"Drive it into the hanger, Rogers." Bucky's tone refused his words and brooked no argument. Meanwhile, his hands were already practicing persuasion, as he reached for Steve's pajama top. The realization hit Steve and panic gripped him.

"No," he said, at once, stilling Bucky's hand on the buttons.

Bucky's brows angled, bewildered. "No on the shirt, or no on everything?"

"No on the shirt." Steve heard his own words, terse, with eyes averted. "I can't do it. I can't let you do it. Not while you're looking at my pigeon chest. It's pathetic."

"Steve, I've seen you bare-assed a hundred times."

"Yeah, well, it's different."

Bucky studied him for a beat. "Maybe for you," he said. But he left off the buttons, letting his fingers linger on the fabric as he trailed them down the placket.

The words were few and cryptic, but specific, and Steve was left wondering what he meant. He knew what it sounded like, but it strained the bounds of credulity, to think that it had never been different for James Buchanan Barnes, that Bucky had always seen him in potentially this context. Bucky had always been able to take his pick of the girls, squiring them around on his arm like ever-changing accessories, and Steve had to figure it would be no different with the guys, if Bucky had that bent. Steve was his best friend, but obviously not his first choice. He wondered if he should feel injured by that. If he already did, just a little. On principle.

"Can I at least take mine off?" Barnes said, wryly. His fingers toyed with the knot at his throat, awaiting the go-ahead.

At first, Steve could only nod. He'd seen Bucky stripped before, and admired his smooth, taut symmetry, but more from the side of envy than longing. Or at least, so he'd always figured. "Yeah," he managed to say. "I mean, only if you want to. It's not really fair, I get that."

"Life isn't fair," said Bucky, with an insolent half-smile, but there was a glint of something in his gaze, almost like sadness. It was an emotion he'd rarely seen in Bucky's eyes, but Steve didn't like it. It seemed too fitting there, in their lambent, downturned depths, like it could all too easily make itself at home.

"Sometimes it is," Steve said quietly, staring into them, willing them to look at him some other way. In his alarm, he'd forgotten all his nerves and apprehension. "Sometimes it's more than fair. Sometimes life gives you things you know you don't deserve."

Bucky was looking back at him, his wide-set lake-blue gaze raw and heart-stopping. It wasn't sadness he saw there now, but something else, an emotion equally primordial. It made Steve's breath hitch. Bucky slid the tie off one side of his neck, and started to unbutton his uniform shirt, deliberately, keeping his eyes on Steve. He shouldered out of it a moment later, leaving him bare-armed and muscled in his olive drab undershirt.

Steve watched, his throat clicking dryly. He shuddered as he felt Bucky's hand come to rest on his thigh and slide over the worn flannel, palming the curve of his half-hard cock through the thin fabric, before slipping inside the waistband.

"That's a no on the pants?" intoned Bucky.

"No," Steve breathed. "I can't—"

"Affirmative."

Sparks shot through him as foreign fingertips brushed the fine hair at his groin, at the knowledge that the touch he felt was Bucky's, and the mere thought that this was happening. A beat later, Bucky plunged his hand down, wrapping it around Steve's cock. Steve closed his eyes, disbelieving. He stroked it, slowly, once, from shaft to tip, squeezing gently as he did, pressing his thumb up under the frenulum. Then he did it again.

"Oh God, Buck." The words were a bare, hoarse whisper. He felt himself growing into Bucky's grasp, urged along by his slow strokes, as blood rushed downward in a mad tsunami.

Bucky made a small, casual noise of surprise. "Well, you might be too small for the Army, but you sure aren't too small where it counts."

Steve flushed. "You've seen it before."

"Seen it off-duty. Not in action." Bucky shrugged. "Sometimes there's a difference."

"Christ, Bucky, how many have you seen in action?"

"One or two," Bucky said, laconic.

"God, that's good." The words escaped him before he could staunch them.

"Got you in the palm of my hand, right?" Bucky laughed good-naturedly, and Steve couldn't believe how at-ease he was, with that languid, affable smile, jerking another guy's cock, much less his best friend's. With Steve groaning under his touch, and at his mercy, with the taboo act; with all of it.

"Yeah," Steve's voice was shaky. He closed his eyes. "I guess you do."

Bucky's gaze settled on his face for a long moment, sobering, studying it as he stroked. Steve felt self-conscious to be observed in such an intimate state, hapless and aroused, but watching him, Barnes seemed to come to some sort of conclusion.

"Listen, handjobs are terrible, all right? I've got a better idea."

"You've got to be kidding me."

Bucky ignored him, shifting downward, fixed on some obscene objective. His thumbs slowly eased the waistband of Steve's pajamas down, just enough to fully expose his stiff, aching cock to the relative coolness of the air. He was careful to honor Steve's wishes—obeying the letter of the law, if not the spirit—but any protest Steve might have made was killed on his lips when Bucky bent his head and swallowed him whole.

Steve tensed, then melted, as his head fell back against the headboard. His fingers clutched the blankets, and his mind reeled. He'd never felt anything like it before. No one had ever done this before. No girl, and certainly no guy.

It seemed to last forever. His cock pulsed warmly, engulfed in Bucky's mouth, devoured and stroked, caressed and embraced. Steve was staggered by his vigor, his lack of inhibition. Watching Barnes perform the act with such idle, indecent enthusiasm, he found himself undone and overcome.

Bucky's fist clenched his cock at the root, anchoring his onslaught, while his free hand traced slow figures; over his hipbones and under his shirt, and somehow that was almost more intimate. All of it conspired to overwhelm his senses.

And when Bucky raised his eyes to look at him, feverish, blue and glinting, Steve felt something tip, and trigger.

"You gotta stop now, Buck," he whispered, urgently. "Or else I'm gonna…"

Bucky drew back obligingly. "Cool your jets, Rogers; I gotcha." Then, with a breathless smirk, he seemed to think better of it. "Aw, what the hell."

He surged back down once more, plunging Steve's cock all the way to the hilt. Steve felt his prick hit the back of Bucky's throat, impossibly deep, and he went off like a Roman candle, shooting the works. Everything in him shuddered, clenched, exploded, and shuddered again. Dazed in the aftermath, steeping in aftershocks, his eyes found Bucky once more. Steve watched his throat flex as he swallowed; a slight, subtle motion with the impact of a gut punch. His loins pulsed along with his heart.

Bucky drew back slowly, lips releasing his cock by inches, like he savored its shape and was reluctant to relinquish it. Several moments passed, as the radio played. Bing Crosby was singing "How Deep is the Ocean".

"You didn't have to…" breathed Steve. "You could have…why did you?"

"I guess I wanted to take a part of you," said Bucky, easing back, avoiding his eyes for the first time. "A part of you, with me to the front. In case I don't come back."

Steve stared, stricken. "Buck…" The words manifested in his throat as thoughts he couldn't swallow, thoughts too raw and hard and green to consume.

"Hey, come on, Rogers." Bucky looked contrite, concerned, and suddenly that odd, unsettling melancholy was back in his eyes. He surged upward, to lie alongside Steve once more, the motion committed with an easy athleticism that came as naturally to him as breathing, one that Steve might have envied yesterday, but now could only admire. "It's okay."

Looking at those eyes, limpid in the lamplight, Steve felt a pang that threatened to obliterate the afterglow, sharp and stark as a switchblade between his ribs.

"It's okay," Bucky said again, once more, more firmly. "Odds are I'll be fine. You always said I was born lucky."

Steve shook his head. "I said you were born lucky because you're perfect, Buck."

Bucky stared. "Aw, come on." He waved him off, making a show of it, but for a beat he'd seemed taken aback; almost bashful.

"It's true." Steve stared at him, unrelenting, his voice sober. "You've always been a specimen, Buck. Every inch of you. Every hair. Hard not to notice. I always thought I was jealous of that, but now I—" _Don't think that so much_.

"Listen, I know how much you want this. The uniform, the orders. But Stevie, I'd be lying if I said I some part of me wasn't glad that you washed out again. Because if you…if something…" Barnes broke off, like there was something jagged in his throat. "Like I said, it's no good without you."

Steve couldn't speak right away. Something else was welling up, filling his ribcage, obliterating everything else. It drowned the stabbing horror, numbed it like a mother's kiss—warm and familiar, but stronger than ever.

"Don't be mad," said Barnes, looking down his hands.

"I'm not," said Steve, slowly. "Mad's not what I am."

"I'd never begrudge you the right, it isn't that. I know if anyone has the heart, and the moxie, and the nerve, it's you. And I'm pulling for you, I really am. Always. I don't hope you'll fail, or anything like that. I just feel a little relieved every time you do."

"It's all right," said Steve. His heart ached strangely as he gazed at his best friend's downcast profile. As always, Bucky was handsome and charismatic, alluring in the late hour's gloom. He wanted to touch Barnes more than anything in that moment, more than he'd ever wanted anything before. To maybe return the favor Barnes had done, if he dared to admit it, but he doubted Barnes wanted that, not from him. When it came to things like heavy petting, Bucky was spoiled for choice. It had probably been something he meant only to bestow; an act of goodwill and no more.

More than anything, Steve realized, he wanted to kiss Bucky—and that was an even more unthinkable, intimate, impossible dream. He'd probably get into the Army before he ever got to first base with James Buchanan Barnes.

But they had always been free with physical affection, he and Bucky. There was no reason he couldn't touch James Buchanan Barnes, the way he always had: with the impunity granted by childhood friendship, and brotherhood.

He reached out before he could lose his nerve and put his hand on Bucky's shoulder. It was a gesture that he would have made without thinking only an hour before. Under his palm the half-bared skin had a new significance, like a double-meaning he'd only just gotten. It had always been there, right in front of him, waiting to be understood.

After a beat, Bucky reached up and laid his hand over Steve's, reinforcing his grip.

Steve hesitated, choking back his thoughts until he finally, haltingly, shoved them out. "Was this, tonight…do you feel sorry for me, Bucky?"

Barnes paused, and Steve watched him saw his jaw for a moment. "No," he said, finally. "I feel bad for you. I feel bad that life isn't fair, and they won't give you what you deserve. It hurts me worse than anything. Worse than anything that's ever been done to me. That's not the same as pity."

"Thanks for being nice to me, Bucky," Steve said quietly. "You were always nice."

"I'm not being nice to you, okay? I'm being good to you. There's a difference."

"Is there?"

"Yeah. One's charity. The other is…different."

Steve wondered if he hadn't been able to finish the analogy, or decided not to.

"It's late," said Bucky, after a moment, glancing at him.

"Yeah," said Steve, hesitant, not quite ready to watch James Buchanan Barnes climb down the fire escape and walk away under the streetlights, hands in his pockets.

Bucky checked his head slightly, with a drowsy smile. "Hey, you care if I sleep here?"

"Since when do I care what you do?" said Steve, falling back on the loving insolence of their habitual dynamic, even as relief flooded through him.

"Just checking," said Barnes, sighing, lying back on the mattress beside him, retrieving his cap and tipping it over his eyes. "Sometimes a man wants to be alone."

"I don't," Steve said, eventually, staring at the wall and realizing the weight of that truth.

"Me neither," intoned Bucky. His eyes were closed.

Steve reached over and switched off the lamp, then settled back beside Barnes. It was a warm night in Brooklyn; too warm for covers. They lay shoulder to shoulder for a while, almost touching. Bucky's breathing was deep and even. Steve wondered if he was already asleep. Now that it was dark, there was no need for the visor cap. He reached over and gently picked it up, setting it on the nightstand.

"Hey," said Bucky.

"What is it?"

"C'mere," he murmured, as he slung an arm around Steve. "I miss you already."


End file.
